FEATURES

“The Innocent Negro”
By Tessa DeCarlo
The controversial world of outsider art.

Pageants Are My Life
By Luke Dittrich
A trip into the strange heart of child beauty pageants.

SHORT STORY

The Eye of the Fire
By James Dickey
A previously unpublished story by the author of Deliverance.

DEPARTMENTS

LOCAL FARE

An Untidy Pilgrimage
By John T. Edge
The extravagant adventures of the neglected food writer Eugene Walter.

BUSINESS

Man’s New Best Friend?
By Andrea Cooper
A North Carolina couple wants to donate tiny horses to the blind. Is this a good idea?

POLITICS

Behind These City Walls
By Diane Roberts
There are mysteries constructed into the very buildings of Washington, DC.

A SOUTHERNER ABROAD

Space Invaders
By John Simpkins
A black American explores the murky racial boundaries of South Africa.

ANIMAL LIFE

Prissy
By Chela Gutierrez
The thrill and savagery of chicken farming.

FORUM

Stand and Deliver
Friends and colleagues remember James Dickey (1923–1997)

ORAL HISTORY

Growing Up with Mr. Faulkner
Robert Ashford Little as told to T.E. Simmons
Remembering life next door to a Nobel Prize-winner

VIDEOS

Straight, No Chaser
By Stewart O’Nan
The unsettling power of Southern Comfort.

BOOK VIEWS

The Conflict Within Ourselves
By Lem Coley
A Recent biography of Allen Tate chronicles the Fugitive poet’s inner quarrels.

SOUTHERN MUSIC

Sweetening the Lemon
By Tom Piazza
A new collection polishes the tunes of bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.

COLUMNS

Meditations for Bad Girls
By Vicki Covington

Dealer’s Choice
By Hal Crowther

Gone Off Up North
By Roy Blount Jr.

POETRY

To Virginia
By Forrest Gander

Spitting
By Michael McFee

The Request
By Ron Rash

Cover: (Left to right) Ensign Charles W. Miller, LTJG. Henry H. Dearing, and LTJG. Bus Alber walking toward their planes on board the USS SARATOGA for the Rabaul raid, 1943. Photo from the National Archives.